red tailed black cockatoos

Fifty black cockatoos! Here! Most of the day! I have never seen more than six red tailed black cockatoos at one time and here they were in our front yard (practically). They were feeding on the fallen white cedar seeds from the trees along the front paddock. They circled down on slow powerful black wings crying their eerie melancholy call. One by one they dropped to the ground and started feeding. There was so much crunching of the cedar nuts it sounded like rain.

The juveniles have yellow/orange/red patches in their tail feathers with lighter coloured beaks while the adults have vivid red patches and black beaks. They moved across the creek into the creek paddock but got a fright from our neighbour's cattle dogs and have flown away. Still, we had them here most of the day.

Nice to be off work. I'm quite spoiled as I only work two days a week, the odd Saturday and, rarely, on call as I was this weekend. A dead calf in the kennel room on Saturday which sat near the heater all night and leaked odoriferous fluids from all orifices. On Sunday a caesarian with a dead decayed pup in the mix of live ones. Then two days of hard yakka including a 4 hour amputation yesterday. Was so lovely sit down last night after standing for 9 1/2 hours without even a lunch break.

There, I've had my whinge. Sometimes I think I'm going to miss work but I won't really. If I didn't notice that I rather dread Mondays I'd be more concerned but because I do dread Mondays I'll be all right with retirement.

Finally remembered a tiny portion of a dream. Saw Nidji first thing this morning while I was bending down for cat food and got that flash of remembrance. It was about a lorikeet who had got out of its cage because the bottom metal part was bent away from the bars. Part of me was glad the bird was free but the other part was worried in case he got hurt. That's all. Of course I can relate that to the caged part of me. Was thinking that when watching Big the other night with Tom Hanks. To be that child again, totally honest, totally enraptured by the world. I spoke about this in my last post but I think it's important. We put on layers of protection which only serve to insulate us against reality - and reality isn't so bad. True reality would be nirvana I think.

Finally finished the drawing and have another blank sheet on the board. Haven't done a thing yet but have an idea. I kept a thumbnail and want to incorporate it with that strange brass castle painting. I've shied away from buildings and landscapes because I'm bad at them. Any portraits I've done, animal or human, have these vague amorphous backgrounds because I haven't the skill to do otherwise.

Just checked into my facebook account which I haven't done in months. Part of me just wants to kill it off, another part says it just sits there doing nothing and doesn't cause any grief. I read the posts from my friends (many of whom I've never met) and think they all have such energy. Commenting on So and so Likes This, whatever this is at the moment, or I just watched this movie or tv episode and giving an instant opinion or whatever. I'm really out of the loop. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

Why?

Perhaps because it seems like such idle chit chat, yada yada yada, white noise. Oh, that's so cruel and so cold. Sometimes I think there's some part of me that wasn't installed at birth, some warm and fuzzy social networking cog that rusted with disuse. Also, you only get out of something what you put into it. And I put very little into social networking of any sort. We'll see G and P this weekend and that will be enjoyable - maybe it's just I'm too choosy.